The Last Jedi Opinions – A Fanbase Divided

The Last Jedi opinions have split the viewers, but what do the Star Wars fans at Digital Fox think?

Nirvana Nagi – I waited two years for THIS?

I’ve seen The Last Jedi twice now, and the first time I saw it I was very disappointed. I had so many problems with the film I didn’t even know where to begin. It felt like Rian Johnson wrote a script just to subvert our expectations.

After a second viewing, I liked it much more. I appreciate what Rian Johnson wanted to accomplish with this film; a fresh take on the franchise. However, the films issues stick out like a sore thumb. I hated the character of Rose and her arc with Finn. The casino scene felt like something from Harry Potter rather than Star Wars.

Most of the humour felt flat. There were a lot of awkward moments in this film and serious moments that were played for laughs. Benicio Del Toro’s character felt like a cartoon with his ridiculous lisp. Maz Kanata’s cameo felt like I was playing a video game. Captain Phasma is wasted AGAIN! Also They kill off Admiral Ackbar like it was nothing, and let’s not even talk about Super Space Leia!

My biggest issue with the film and with Johnson is that The Force Awakens set up so many questions that had fans theorising over only to abandon numerous plot threads and play crucial moments for a gag. It felt like a huge FU to all us fans.

There are things that I really liked about TLJ however

I loved Kylo Ren and his arc. Snoke gets killed off unceremoniously by Ren in a huge WTF moment that had many fans outraged, but I appreciated what it did for Ren’s character. I do wish we got more backstory about Snoke, and discovered how he was so powerful and how he came into power. Rian Johnson pretty much used Snoke as a plot device rather than a real character, I wish we got more of him but his death served to elevate Kylo Ren as the big baddie of trilogy.

I did not agree with what Johnson did with Luke’s character (neither did Mark Hamill) but I still appreciated it and loved Hamill’s final performance as Luke Skywalker. I liked Poe’s arc in the film as he gets put in his place for his reckless behaviour. He and Kylo Ren are the only ones of the new characters to be given proper character development.

Overall, while I don t hate it as much as I did when I first saw it, The Last Jedi is still not a great movie. Rian Johnson took too many risks and a lot of them did not pay off. I applaud his balls for taking some bold decisions he knew would piss off a lot of Star Wars fans (myself included).

I am shocked at how well the critics received this movie, The Last Jedi holds a 93% RT critic score! Madness! The Disney monopoly is in full force (pun not intended) and the future of Star Wars is in jeopardy. Help us J.J Abrams you’re our only hope!

It’s not all bad though, I for one cannot wait for the remake of Man of Steel with Leia Organa as Clark Kent/Superman.

Kylo Ren looking as badass as ever
source – comicbook.com

Elli Izrailov – It was okay, but because it was okay, it was bad.

I expect a certain level of grandeur and story-telling in a Star Wars movie. And coming out of The Last Jedi I was simply disappointed. I could poke holes at some of the stupid decisions made by characters just to make the plot more interesting. But I won’t because I have a limited amount I can fit in.

Regardless, the film felt quite… empty. In any other Star Wars film, you can both imagine and see the grand size of the Rebel and Imperial armies. In The Last Jedi, it was really contained to a few ships on both sides. Throughout the film I was thinking “really? The Resistance has only three ships left?” As well as, “If the First Order has conquered most of the galaxy, why can’t they send in more ships to flank the Resistance?” It felt small. And Star Wars is anything but small.

Even some of the character motivations felt off to me. The decisions made by director Rian Johnson has ultimately undone the work that George Lucas established in his original trilogy. Luke isn’t as much of a hero anymore. Okay it’s just the Luke thing, but it really irks me.

Having said that, I think Rian Johnson got a lot of things right in The Last Jedi. The symbolism (which you can check out in this neat link) was spot on, and Rey and Kylo’s interactions were my favourite part of the film. The humour was pretty decent. I thought that Snoke was a terrifying villain. But Gwendoline Christie’s character Captain Phasma was just wasted.

So I would give it a 7 porgs out of 10.

Jeshanth Khani – The Last Jedi has taken Luke and ripped him apart. And that’s why I will always hate The Last Jedi.

The first gifts from my wife were a miniature Luke and Darth Vader action figures. My friends and I constantly made ‘Star Wars’ references and judged anyone who didn’t get it. We signed-off by saying “May the Force be with you”, heck we even had the Imperial march and lightsaber noises as our ringtones. Needless to say, Star Wars played a big part while growing up. And I couldn’t wait for the Last Jedi.

Three things made me excited for The Last Jedi: More Luke Skywalker, Yay!, Kylo Ren and his dynamics with Luke and Rey, and the answers to the questions from the JJ Abrams’s TFA. I watched TLJ and cried. And they were not happy tears. There was tons of cool stuff. The CGI was great, lightsaber duel was pretty good. But the Luke we knew was gone. I’m not talking about him dying. The optimistic (slightly reckless) farmboy we were introduced to in the original trilogy, was gone and it didn’t make sense. So what? It was just one flaw. Big deal. It was indeed a big deal.

Luke had flown himself to Ach-to, not to find the old Jedi texts (which he did), but to exile himself. He went there to die while the universe burned and he was also doing a bad job at it, green milk anyone? It made no sense because Luke was the boy who convinced Yoda to help him get back into the fight against Vader, his dad. It made no sense because Yoda and Obi-wan from the originals had lost everything and yet stayed hopeful to find a way to overthrow the Empire.

This Luke on the other hand was having none of that.

I understand that the new trilogy is more of a passing on the torch, but this is quite disrespectful. Killing Han Solo was painful but it made sense, but my heart can’t take Disney’s devious plan to destroy the franchise (by having no plan at all). Despite successfully making Kylo Ren more complex, it has taken Luke and ripped him apart. And that’s why I will always hate The Last Jedi.

The Last Jedi is one of the most divisive films in the franchise source – starwars.com

Tj Maldonado –The Last Jedi left me as conflicted as Rey or Kylo supposedly were in The Last Jedi.

I felt everything was strong in this movie – the acting, the writing (although cheesy at times), the visuals which were absolutely stunning etc etc. However, arguably the most important thing was missing – The Force. I didn’t leave the theatre wanting to wield a lightsaber or sign up with the rebellion. It was just meh.

Although I think Rian Johnson captured the feel of the Star Wars universe, it could’ve been better. This movie absolutely could just be a victim of overhype and spoiling the damn movie itself with the trailers but I don’t think it’s that simple. If this were a movie by another name, I would’ve been a bit more enthusiastic.

It needed more Luke lightsaber battles. I would’ve liked to have seen Kylo grow up a little bit instead of being stuck as whiny emo kid. It would’ve been nice to have a decent Snoke backstory instead of killing him off. He had so much more potential to go down as one of the most badass villains of all time.

The movie did have its highlights

The Luke and Leia scene moved me (admittedly her passing away in real life added to that scene). The opening scene was well done with the tension kicked up to 11 and the hyper speed kamikaze scene was phenomenal as well.

There was a little bit of self serving on Johnson’s casino scenes and going back to those kids at the end of the movie may be a hint at the trilogy Disney has green lighted for him which detracted from the main story a bit. He also was making it very clear that he wanted to kill or end the old movies. When Rey and Kylo destroyed Luke’s lightsaber, it gave Luke an unsatisfying (and unnecessary) death. It was a poor choice when the very thing you’re trying to emulate is the thing you end up destroying at the same time.

The main takeaway for me was that as much as they try, newer Star Wars films will never live up to the original trilogy. For example The Force Awakens was generally accepted as the best of the newer films and even that was just a carbon copy of A New Hope. So maybe Rian Johnson was right in his ‘let it die’ message after all. Maybe we should just be happy with the spin offs, in particular Rogue One because at least the heroes there died for a good reason.

“This is not going to go the way you think” , boy was Luke right.source – bgr.com

Tracie Hicks– The Last Jedi is a good movie, but not everything is perfect.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a good movie. It has some decent action and laughter. I was able to stay in my seat the whole time. But, not everything is perfect.

The movie is too comical, too much of a joke. I am not saying the other films were not humorous. They had their moments. But the comedy was earned in the previous films. The banters between Han Solo and Chewy were great and funny. Han Solo’s character is meant to be sarcastically funny, and Harrison Ford pulled it off successfully.

The rest of the Star Wars films were more on the serious side, The Last Jedi film had its serious moments, but they were overshadowed by the misplaced use of comedy. The movie needed more action, more fight scenes, and less comedy and cuteness factor (Porgs).

Andrew Jay Ellis – It leaves plenty of questions to be answered and I can’t wait for Episode IX

I believe my introduction to Star Wars was through VHS. At some point they had shown them all on TV so my brother and I wore those tapes out. I had a ton of Star Wars micro machines and I’ve used plenty of toy bats as lightsabers and nerf guns to save the galaxy myself.

I’ve been excited for The Last Jedi ever since The Force Awakens ended. It would give us more Luke Skywalker and we’d get to see where everyone’s story goes. I was nervous when I heard the news that Mark Hamill had told the director Rian Johnson he disagreed with pretty much everything Luke did in the script. And there was also the fact that Johnson has stalwarts been known for darker movies. My first thought was that Rey was going to go to the dark side. But I also trusted the higher powers (Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy), who would have to approve the script.

In all honesty, I loved The Last Jedi

I liked Luke’s storyline and the humor that was inserted throughout. And while I’m sad his story ended, it did make sense. Because now it sets up a final battle between Kylo and Rey. And General Leia even started passing the torch off to Poe towards the end. Finn and Rey’s reunion at the end was very satisfying. I’m really excited to see how that friendship develops.

Were there a few things I didn’t get? Sure. The main one being Leia flying through outer space. I’m assuming it was the Force in action, but I had no idea it’d help her survive space. But it didn’t take me out of the movie.

This one makes me excited for the next one. It left plenty of questions to be answered, and I’m ready to see how this saga concludes.

Finn vs Phasma aka Chrome Domesource – vox.com

Patrick Newbery – A few great scenes does not make a good film.

Star Wars to me was like if you go out for lunch and order a Pepsi but all they have is Coke. You’re going to get the Coke and enjoy it because it’s close enough to Pepsi, but on the other hand you really wanted that Pepsi and it’s not quite what you wanted. Then again some people just hate Pepsi or Coke to begin with.

While I might say my expectations were high given that I loved The Force Awakens. I can say I truly had no idea what to Expect with The Last Jedi as I avoided all trailers leading up to the screening. Waltzing into the midnight screening with a glint in my eye and a song in my heart I was so ready for the next instalment of a huge part of my life. I left feeling disappointed…

Disappointed because there was so much that was good about The Last Jedi, but so much that was oh so wrong. I’ll just give a quick summary of the good and the bad for you. The Last Jedi started out like a mirror of Empire, but quickly lost its way. They were escaping at the start of the film and STILL at the end, this caused the film to slow down and drag. Poe Dameron was the best part about the film but under utilised.

Every time they had the opportunity to deliver some hard hitting line they would crack a lame joke.

Fin and Roses story was a distraction and introduced the annoying stuttering Benicio Del Toro. Not to mention the Alien with the southern American accent that was extremely over the top. Some of the worst kid actors money can buy cringed up our screens here and the entire story lead to a dead end yet took up a lot of screen time. BB8 turned into something not dissimilar to the Doctors Sonic Screwdriver, if there was a problem then he has a way to fix it. That’s just sloppy writing.

Kylos character was much better during this film and I’m glad they took some risks.
I could get into more but I’m sure others will touch on it. The one thing I thought after the lights came on and everyone started applauding was “you’ve all been brainwashed”. While there was enough in there to make it worthwhile for me there was way too much wrong with it. I was reminded of Fantastic Beasts, probably the worst disjointed film of last year yet the Harry Potter fans lapped it up because it was Harry Potter. Not exactly the same case for The Last Jedi but a few great scenes does not make a good film.

Louis Skye – The Last Jedi fails to live up to the hype

It is a Star Wars film that tries to do too much in too little time and ends up creating an incoherent narrative.

Though The Last Jedi expands the Star Wars universe beautifully with gorgeous new locations and creatures, it does so at the expense of the established mythos and characters. Characters that we loved in The Force Awakens – Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron – are barely given anything to do. Rey has a grand total of one fight scene; Finn is nigh-incompetent. Poe is most hard-done by, reduced to a screeching harpy who unapologetically causes Resistance fighters to lose their lives.

Where The Force Awakens promised exciting backstories for Captain Phasma and Supreme Leader Snoke, The Last Jedi reduces them to mere punchlines. Kylo Ren is the only one who escapes unscathed, being given a magnificent arc that helps audiences understand his character better. The Last Jedi also fails to give viewers any reason to love the new characters introduced in this film. Holdo and Rose Tico are, at best, plot devices, at worst, manic pixie dreamgirls to assist Poe and Finn’s storylines.

Worst of all, the film is boring. Most of the important plot points, including the major twists, are presented via exposition. Show, don’t tell was not this film’s motto.The Last Jedi is in essence, a long series of jump scares created solely to evoke a reaction from viewers. It promises a payoff it never delivers on. Had this film been the start of a new trilogy, it might have worked better, but as a sequel, it does not achieve what it was meant to – building on an established universe and characters.

However, this is Star Wars, so we will endeavour to love it, even if we didn’t enjoy it.

Now we’re did I leave the Falcon?source – sciencefiction.com

Thomas Hanrahan – I admire Johnsons’ vision but feel like he’s making it up as he goes along

I’ve been a Star Wars fan from back in the day when I had Beta tape versions as my home copies. When The Force Awakens arrived in cinemas it had me at hello. With The Last Jedi, our relationship is a little more complex. It didn’t destroy my childhood and I won’t boycott the next film because I’m being tempted by dark side due to poor filmmaking decisions.

Choosing to jettison so many plot elements that had been set up in the previous films was like being hit with a defibrillator repeatedly. The new generation of characters lost some of their appeal in this instalment and our old favourites acquired some new apparently hidden talents for comedy.

I admire that Director Rian Johnson had the ambition to take a sledgehammer to the Star Wars mythology but at the same it feels like he’s just making up things as the film goes along. When the film gets it right it’s spectacular. Using hyperdrive as a weapon and not just for speed is arguably in the top 5 greatest Star Wars moments ever made. When it gets it wrong I’m looking at frogs dressed at nuns or Luke drinking from the teat of something resembling the loch ness monster.

I laughed, I gasped, I cringed. I furrowed my brow and going through all these emotions came from a moderately enjoyable experience. I’m not changing the finale music from Return of the Jedi angry but I’m cautious of what’s to come.

I still need time to decompress and I’ll watch it again to fully understand where my heads at but Star Wars is definitely now at a crossroads. Your move J.J.

Tom James – I’ve got a bad feeling about this

When you have a saga like Star Wars, it’s a little different. People are so, so invested in the Original Trilogy it’s like a religion, and I believe census’s now accept Jedi as a religious belief. So changing it up a little is high risk and something JJ was right to avoid.

Changing it up a lot is going to piss people off, and it has. I sat through The Last Jedi cringing throughout. Luke, a hero, the light in the universe has become a babbling, cowardly, daft embarrassment. There was so much potential for his return to be epic, and he didn’t even left the island. I understand the need for a character arc, but this went the wrong way.

The chase throughout the entire movie reminded me of The Empire Strikes Back when the Star Destroyer was closing in through the asteroid field. Only it was stretched, lifeless and ridiculous. So, both ships run at exactly the same pace huh? The First Order can’t call for help and get another destroyer involved? Or have one of the ships hyperspeed ahead and then turn around? This was a stupid implementation of a plot device.

The powerful and emotionally pulling Force was rarely touched on and ditched. The process of becoming a Jedi, or a Sith wasn’t explored. The hole in the ground scene meant nothing (someone explain that to me please). Rey can suddenly take on powerful dark force users through talent, not training. The Last Jedi just rips the mythology and detail that had been added to the saga over 40 years away. People invested time in that. A lot of time.

Half the movie was a waste and meant nothing to the story.

The sideplot was awful. And reminded me very much of The Phantom Menace, which I actually enjoyed more than this movie. The Phantom Menace was stupid and bad but had it’s heart in the right place. The Last Jedi was a betrayal and desecration of a wonderful series.

It also leaves a very hard task for the next movie. There are no more idols from the Original Trilogy. They were the heroes. Rey doesn’t cut it without being connected to the SkyWalker family. Kylo Ren is all that’s left of The SkyWalker Saga and that taints everything we went through to get to this point. We’re left with a stroppy brat as the only SkyWalker left after Leia and this makes Lukes final battle against the emperor and Darth Vader seem a little pointless when his nephew becomes all that’s left of his bloodline.

This had so much potential to be epic. And it wouldn’t have been difficult.

Give Luke a good send off, don’t screw up his character arc. Keep your chases and action sequence timing in line with the Original Trilogy, give Chewbacca more airtime, ditch the shoddy sideplots. Gawd. Actual bring in some of the mysticism and good vs evil vibe from the Original, don’t combat it and shroud it in grey. I enjoyed the first scene in this movie, and that’s about it. The rest I felt physically ill watching.

Visually The Last Jedi is impressive. Most impressivesource – lucasfilm

Kate Murfett – The Last Jedi is bloated and vacant of decent storytelling

At two and a half hours long, The Last Jedi was a bloated, thematically distended and symbolically trite movie that was simultaneously and bafflingly vacant of decent story telling.

If The Force Awakens is the leashed child of the franchise, choosing to rehash safe options in typical Disney style, The Last Jedi is the rebellious teenager who keeps trying on different personalities because they don’t really know who they are, but they know who they don’t want to be. Unfortunately this leaves the movie feverishly scrambling to address all of it’s stop-started plot points.

Characters with established personalities and histories are completely reconstructed. (Eg: Luke – the only person who believed Vader could return to the light and was successful in turning him, is quick to murder his nephew when he has a vague vision of a dark future. Or Leia – who is suddenly so force sensitive she can float across the void of space to save her own life), or ignored completely (RIP Chewie). Introduced characters are misused to pointless arcs (Rose and the most abysmal romantic arc ever, or Holdo: a character who’s clear competence is completely ignored in the face of heroism and blowing stuff up. Because explosions. Or Snoke, enough said.)

So much of the story was side quest filler that served little purpose other then to give characters something to do.

The entire concept of the force was rehashed and changed AGAIN, going completely opposite from the midichlorean disaster. Now anybody can access and tap into the Force inside them like a magic battery. So much for training to control your emotions. Don’t even get me started on Rey’s little trip down the rabbit hole of evil.

To be fair. Some of the battles and camera shots were pretty rad, and as a commentary on gender and the concept of moral ambiguity, it was a step in the right direction.
But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and certainly don’t rewrite and refocus an entire mythology and franchise just because you want to break out of the box.

P.S – having read most of the companion new-canon books, if I have to go out of my way to spend more money to find out some pretty crucial plot details (How Phasma escapes, who Voldo is etc), perhaps that’s an error in judgement.

P.P.S – the comedy was lame and felt completely forced (eeyyyyo)

P.P.P.S – please someone address how all of the exciting fan-theoried moments were completely dissatisfying letdowns?

Jason William – The Last Jedi is a mess

What Disney has done is that they’ve made the experience of watching Star Wars akin to ordering a McDonalds cheeseburger. Sure, you might get your fill for a brief period – but at the end of the day, you come to realise that you’ve consumed nothing but trash and end up hating yourself for spending money on it.

As with all Star Wars movies, The Last Jedi started off with a bang – showing the rebel alliance take on the dreaded First Order, and evacuating their home base. While this scene is, without a doubt, brilliantly portrayed and filled with incredible space combat, from here on out the film takes a slow and dismal turn. I have seen people describe the Rebel/First Order plot as a game of cat and mouse – but to be more accurate, imagine if the cat was old, slow and had terrible hand eye co-ordination, and the mouse had no limbs and could only roll.

My problems with The Last Jedi run akin to the original prequel trilogy

In that this is riddled with boring characters, unnecessary CGI (that serves more of a distraction than establishing an alien world), and wasted potential in both the story progress and character developments.

For instance, the new rebel character Rose Tico. I don’t know about other audience members, but I didn’t care about her or her dead sister. If this movie was hoping for me to garner sympathy for this character I’ve known less for an hour, they should’ve at least established her during The Force Awakens, or have at least spend this movie to appreciate her and (possibly) her sibling.

This isn’t me trying to tarnish the character or even the actress who portrays her. I’m just saying with the multiple characters we already have, and the multiple side stories this film is trying to balance. Two and a half hours isn’t enough for audience members to take her in as a character. And when you throw in a sudden romance between her and Finn (and compare that to Leia’s romance with Han Solo), it comes across as rushed.

I think one of the most insulting things about this movie is how they’ve portrayed Luke Skywalker. If you were hoping for a humble and wise Ben Kenobi from the original trilogy to guide Rey into the force, you’re out of luck. Throughout this film, Luke comes across as nothing more but a lying, bitter scared old man. His only ambition in life seems to be drinking disgusting testicle milk and to die on an island surrounded by ugly chicken hamsters. I hated Luke throughout this movie and longed for Kylo Ren to just hurry up and murder him.

Overall, The Last Jedi is a mess, and anymore said by me may require an article from myself. Whether this the fault of the director (who also wrote this film) not suited for this type of franchise, or the fault of Disney hoping to cram into too many elements, I will hold out for J.J’s vision and see if he can find some way to fix this.

The overall consensus seems to be that, The Last Jedi was indeed a disappointing and faithless chapter in the Star Wars franchise.

What did you think of The Last Jedi? Let us know in the comments below!